Category: thoughts

Last week Sam at Becks & Posh showed the folks what was in her refrigerator, and ended the post asking her readers what their unedited fridges look like. Ever late to the game, here’s mine:

I share this small, old refrigerator with two other people, so we always have an overabundance of milk, mustard, and salad dressing. On the top: strawberries, half used containers of whipping cream, sour cream, pickled jalapenos, chipotles (six months old…is that bad?), and the ever-present yogurt. Some chocolate, some leftover beans, some leftover salsa.

Next shelf: Maple syrup (Crystal’s), tofu (Alex’s), leftover pineapple (mine), hummus, tortillas, and eggs (ours). Hiding in the back is the yeast and the lard, and probably some spaghetti sauce. There is a drawer with more cheese in it than you can shake a stick at. I think we collect it.

Bottom shelf: leftover chocolate zabaglione, chicken stock, orange juice, milk, buttermilk, soy milk, more yogurt, wine and more wine, and some pancetta. I have no idea what’s in the crispers: Alex’s is the full one and mine is the empty one, with what looks like some yellowing lettuce in there. Hm.

And of course, the ridiculously full door shelves, loaded down with salad dressings of all types, worcestershire, preserves from Crystal’s family’s beach house, peanut butter (always, always peanut butter, as I’m addicted to it), chili sauce, pesto, mustard, chocolate syrup. Jesus, I don’t even know what’s all in that door.

I try to clean out the refrigerator once every three months. Shared living situations always result in three-year-old bottles of tomato sauce and mayonnaise that’s turning blue. However, shared living also means that there’s almost always eggs somewhere in the fridge.

I recently had a life-changing experience. Well, it wasn’t so much AN experience as several of them, in quick succession. And they were experiences as much as sitting on a couch reading can really be an experience. But I feel that my head has been turned around, and something that was only minimally important to me before has become a serious kitchen priority. And that something is organic.

I guess you could say all of this started in late January, when Michael Pollan published an article in the New York Times. “Unhappy Meals” made the rounds pretty quickly and inspired much conversation. Of course, I read it and instantly forwarded it to Crystal. It was one of those articles that made me think, “Everyone needs to read this!” But I long ago learned that I can’t make people read anything, no matter how important I think it is. I stopped harping on people about it, and it was mostly forgotten.

A few weeks ago, I read Don’t Eat This Book, Morgan Spurlock’s elaboration on Super Size Me. Nothing particularly revelatory in there. After all, I did read Fast Food Nation. Twice. But it had the effect of focusing my attention, like a magnifying glass catching the sun and setting things on fire. I could feel it. I was going to become obsessed.

Continue reading Michael Pollan and Allandale Farms

I just read this article at the New York Times and I feel a bit vindicated. I have long held that the adage to never cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink should not be the kitchen gospel it is. First, you’re putting it over hot fire, which immediately renders it a different glass of wine altogether. Second, you’re mixing it with other things that are likely more flavorful than the wine itself, and you don’t really want the wine to stand out that much, anyway. Third, I’m poor and can’t afford to go pouring the good wine into the sauce, instead of into my belly, where it belongs.

Julia Moskin does some extensive kitchen experimentation to prove, to my mind beyond a doubt, that cheap wine in your risotto (and whatever else you’re cooking) is a-ok.

I can’t believe I never noticed before. Well, I guess I can believe it, because it’s not as though I frequent Starbucks. I’m pretty much only in them a few times a year, when I get the ubiquitous Starbucks gift cards for Christmas. This morning I took one of those Christmas gift cards and went to get myself a double short nonfat latte (or whatever the Starbucks lingo is for that), and that’s when I saw them. The fake espresso machines.

There are no group heads. There are no portafilters. There is no filling and tamping and no real pulling. It really is McSpresso. The complete mechanization of what I considered, after several years of pulling espresso, to be something of a beautiful coffee art. It was the final push that sent me into Starbucks hatred.

I started calling Starbucks the Evil Coffee Empire when I was in high school, but I always maintained at least small good feelings about the place for three reasons: They pay their employees decently, give them benefits, and teach them the fine art of brewing a wonderful coffee beverage. So what if they also teach them to add a bunch of sugary, caramely, whipped creamy crap to those beverages–at least they were also learning the ancient art, the craft of pulling espresso.

Except they’re not. Not learning the art anyway. They might still be getting good pay and benefits, but whatever. It is totally a McJob, requiring no skill and no learning, and no craft. They just push a button! And then pour some poorly foamed milk on top. (Of course, I’m feeling an inner conflict because my cousin has been working at Starbucks for years and I’m sure she is not a skill-less worker. She would probably argue the opposite of what I’m saying here. Or maybe not.)

Not like this is some kind of massive moment of disillusionment. I’ve never been a Starbucks fan. It was just a weird, weird moment, and a little bit soul crushing, to realize that even espresso could be machined.

I know it’s not really cooking, and that I probably shouldn’t even mention it here, but sometimes a girl just feels like booty, and the thought of going to the grocery store, chopping shit up, and standing long enough to cook it is very, very unappealing. Times like these are times I rely on soup in a bag.

Of course everyone eats soup when they’re sick: It’s easy, the steaminess instantly makes you feel better, and there’s all kinds of vegetables and good stuff in it. And sure, canned soup is easier, but this stuff is way, way, way better, and only takes about 15 minutes. And if you’re not feeling supremely lazy and/or sick, you can add in all kinds of vegetables and other good stuff, and actually serve it to people because it doesn’t taste like it came from a can.

I’m not getting paid by these people or anything, I just thought I’d let you in on the deal. If you see this shit in the market, it’s totally worth it. And hopefully, all the nutritive properties of lentils and carrots and stuff will knock this cold right on its ass, and out of me. Then I can get back to cooking real stuff.  

There hasn’t been a ton of food cooking happening in my kitchen this week, due to the somehow suddenly extreme stress of Christmas-related things. How did it get stressful? I don’t know! But the stove has been silent…well, except for Crystal’s Extreme Truffle Making. (I wanted to document tnat process, but alas, I mostly missed it. However our kitchen had a heavenly chocolate smell for awhile.)

But don’t fear because tomorrow will be the Pseudo-Christmas Eve dinner extravaganza. Well, extravaganza might be laying it on a bit thick, but there will be food, yet again. I’ll be making up my family’s traditional Christmas Eve dinner, a few nights early for friends who will be leaving town to visit their own families and whatnot.

What is this traditional Christmas Eve dinner, you ask? That would be the near-infamous Beer Cheese Soup, with summer sausage, lovely cheese, crispy bread, perhaps some salad, and for dessert? Well, that I haven’t decided yet. I guess you’ll just have to wait until Friday…

This year my parents refused to tell me what they wanted for Christmas. “Just donate to a charity,” my mom suggested, and I scoffed at the computer (we pretty much only communicate through email). No packages to open? No pretty shiny baubles to send through the mails? Charity? Bah.

Of course, my first thought was to donate to Planned Parenthood, as the raging pro-choice feminist that I am, but somehow I felt that donating in my parents’ name to Planned Parenthood just wouldn’t give the right message.

Then, I remembered the food bloggers’ charity: A Menu for Hope, and I want to tell all of you about it, too. This year, A Menu for Hope is raising money for the UN World Food Programme, and so far have raised over $36,000, which is pretty freaking amazing.

You can donate in increments of $10, and each $10 also gets you a raffle ticket in a drawing for all kinds of interesting food-related prizes.

The donation window closes this Friday, so get to it while you can and give some money to a worthy cause.

Harold McGee, the author of On Food and Cooking, has a new column in the NY Times: The Curious Cook. I’ve been slowly trying to get my way through On Food and Cooking. It’s really a cool book if you’re interested in knowing what happens to food when cooks do various cooking things to it, and I think that if I manage to read the whole thing I’ll be a better cook. That’s the theory anyway. It’s kind of dense, though.

This new column could be a way to get the McGee goodness in smaller, more palatable doses. I’ll still try to do battle with the book, though–it will be defeated!

This week, the NYT addresses something I’ve always been peculiarly interested in: how much drinkin’ is too much drinkin’ when you’re With Child? In the grand tradition of American Fear Mongering, we’ve been taught to think that if a pregnant lady has even a sip of wine she’s dooming her childto mental retardation, and maybe she should be locked up. We’re never good at drawing lines between moderation and abuse, and with that knowledge in mind, I’ve always thought that the French probably have the right idea–a few drinks (not hard liquor) a week is probably fine.

It seems some obstetricians (unofficially) agree. I appreciate Julia Moskin, the author, for being really upfront about the realities of being preggers, and still wanting to have a beer with your husband at the end of the day. And frankly, I think that if a lady is giving birth to anothing human being, she’s responsible enough to make her own decisions about her own body.

Apparently, if everyone else jumped off a bridge I would totally do it, too.

I have recently become a bit crazy about all food- and cooking-related things. I always enjoyed cooking, but never really had a clue about technique or flavor combinations (yes, I once made spaghetti with beets, garbanzo beans, and feta). Well now I’m learning, and I’m ready to share with you the knowledge that I imbibe. Or something.

Of course, I don’t have a decent digital camera yet (I’ve been resolutely clinging to my 35 mm film), and it’s a Universally Awknowledged Truth that a food blog without pictures is scarcely a food blog at all. But hopefully that will be remedied soon, and then the whole tricky Taking Pictures of Food will be another thing I have to learn. (You’ll see that the early attempts are less than awesome.)

I hope my adventures are suitably amusing, and merely strive to be half as witty and creative as so many of the great food writers already out there in the world.